A School Psychologist's resource for all things tech.

Posts tagged ‘autism’

In the educational realm, most people know that April is Autism Awareness Month. There are many public relation activties going on to raise awareness around autism such as Autism Speaks’ Light It Up Blue campaign. World Autism Day is actually today, April 2nd. I know many of us work very hard every single day to support students with autism by working directly with students, working with parents, improving educator awareness around autism and so today is not that different than every other day. Also, even though I’m on spring break I know that my students at home with autism don’t have a day off from their autism because it is World Autism Day or Autism Awareness Month. I know there are parents, sibling, family members and caretakers at home today that will experience the range of emotions that come every day in the lives of families impacted by autism. So while I know for some families, today is just like any other day, I hope that families and educators can remember and celebrate some of the laughs, joy and smiles that surround working with students with autism. I know I’ve reminisced about a few humorous recent events.

I can personally reflect on my own increased awareness and understanding of Autism just this year. I’ve spent many hours this year in professional development sessions focused on understanding the difference between ASD and Emotional Impairments, or ASD and ADHD or ASD and Cognitive Impairments. Our district also provided us with the great opportunity to be trained in using the ADOS-2 which reinforced a lot of previous knowledge but provided new learning for me. With my new knowledge and reinforced previous knowledge, I’m able to approach tech resources for students, parents and educators better. One such example is in a drafts posts about digital social stories and I’ll make a point to finish and publish that post during April. But for today there are great apps on sale that I’m going to download, check out and see if they are good or not. You should take advantage of these sales now too in case an app that I review later is really good but has gone back up in price. If it isn’t a worthwhile app then I’ll let you know you can and should delete it.

Enjoy looking at all of the apps that are on sale, learning great new information or reaffirming previous knowledge today and throughout the month of April. And if you haven’t turned your facebook, twitter, linkedin account Blue yet, do it now!